God Predestined Us unto Sonship Through Jesus Christ

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He
destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according
to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace
which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

One of the saddest feelings in the world is the feeling that
your life is going nowhere. You're alive. But you feel like there
is no point in being alive. You get a little daydream—a little
flicker—of what it might be like to be a part of something really
great and really valuable, and what it might be like to have a
significant part in it. But then you wake up and everything looks
so small and insignificant and pitiful and out of the way and
unknown and pointless.

Our Need for a Meaningful, Purposeful Future

We were not made to live without a destiny. We were made to be
sustained by a meaningful, purposeful future. We were made to be
strengthened each day by this assurance, this confidence: that what
is happening in our lives today, no matter how mundane and ordinary,
is a really significant step toward something great and good and
beautiful tomorrow.

When that connection breaks down—between my present life and a
great and good and beautiful destiny—I have three choices:

I can kill myself; or

I can numb myself (with alcohol or drugs or television or
pornography or romance novels or computers or frantic work or
frantic play); or

I can seek to reestablish the connection by finding what my true
destiny really is.

An Illustration from a Nazi Concentration Camp

In a Nazi concentration camp in Hungary during the Second World War prisoners were forced to do nauseating work in a sewage plant.
But it was work; and something was accomplished. Then the plant was
destroyed by allied bombers. So the Nazi officers arranged for the
prisoners to shovel sand into carts and drag it to the other end of
the plant and dump it. The next day they ordered them to shovel it
back into the carts and bring it to where they started. And so it
went for days.

Finally one old man began crying uncontrollably; the guards
hauled him away. Another screamed until he was beaten into silence.
Then a young man who had survived three years in the camp darted
away from the group. The guards shouted for him to stop as he ran
toward the electrified fence. The other prisoners cried out, but it
was too late; there was a blinding flash and a terrible sizzling
noise as smoke puffed from his smoldering flesh. In the days that
followed, dozens of the prisoners went mad and ran from their work
only to be shot by guards or electrocuted by the fence (Charles
Colson, Kingdoms in Conflict, p. 68).

We were made to be sustained by a purposeful future. We were
made to live in the assurance of a significant destiny.

"Destiny" and Predestination

I use the word destiny simply to connect this tremendous cry of
the human heart with the word predestination in today's text,
Ephesians 1:5. We began last week with verse 4: "God chose us in
him before the foundation of the world." This week we take up verse
5: "God predestined us to sonship through Jesus Christ for himself
according to the good pleasure of his will."

I want to establish in your hearts this morning—you who believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ and count him your Master and Savior and
Hope—I want to establish in your hearts an assured destiny, a
great and good and beautiful future, so that you don't ever have to
sob over empty days or scream over futility or throw yourself on
the wires because there is no future worth living for. And the way
I want to establish this destiny in your heart and make it firm is
by showing you two things in this text: the goal of your destiny,
and the ground of your destiny.

1. The Goal of Our Destiny

First, let's focus our attention on the goal of our destiny.
What are we destined for?

Predestined for Sonship to Bear the Family Likeness

Verse 5 gives part of the answer: "God predestined us for
sonship." Our destiny from before the creation of the world was to
become the children of God.

The difference between predestination, which is mentioned in
verse 5, and election (or choosing) which is mentioned in verse 4,
is that election refers to God's freedom in choosing whom he will
predestine. Predestination refers to the goal or destiny for which
he chose them. Election is God's choosing whom he will, and
predestination is God's determination that they will become his
children.

When God chose you, he had a purpose, and so he predestined that
purpose to come about, namely, that you would become a child of God.
That you would be part of his family. That you would become an heir
of all that God owns. That you would take on the family
likeness.

Your destiny to be God's children is mentioned in verse 5: "He
predestined us unto sonship." And one meaning of that, the family
likeness, is mentioned at the end of verse 4: "He chose us in him
before the foundation of the world [Why? For what destiny?] that we
should be holy and blameless before him in love." That's the
practical content of our destiny as God's children. We are destined
to take on the character of God our Father, the character of
holiness and blamelessness. That's our destiny.

Holy and Blameless "In Love"

Now notice where I am putting the little phrase "in love." I'm
making it a part of the end of verse 4, not the beginning of verse
5. My reading is found in the footnote in your Bible if you have an
RSV or NIV or an NASB. I'm following the KJV and the NRSV.

Here's the difference: I'm suggesting that verse 4 reads, "He
chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and blameless before him in love." "In love" goes with holy
and blameless and shows us what holiness is.

The other way of reading it puts "in love" with predestine in
verse 5 and says, "He predestined us in love unto sonship." Here it
refers to the love of God and tells us the way he predestined us.
The order of the words in Greek allows for both of these
readings.

Four Parallels with 1 Thessalonians 3:12–13

Here's the main reason I go with the KJV and put it with verse 4
and make love the essence of our holiness. There is a parallel in 1
Thessalonians 3:12–13 that goes like this:

May the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for
one another, and for all men . . . so that he may establish your
hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father.

To me it is very remarkable that there are at least four
parallels with our text:

the phrase "in love" ("may God cause you
to abound in love"),

the combination of blamelessness and holiness
("that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness"),

the
phrase "before our God" ("holiness before our God") which
corresponds to the phrase "holy and blameless before him" in
Ephesians 1:4;

and the reference to God as our Father just as we
have the focus on sonship in Ephesians 1:5.

Our Destiny to Live in and Walk in Love

All that says to me that just as love is the pathway to holiness
in 1 Thessalonians 3:12, so love is the pathway to holiness in
Ephesians 1:4. And so to live in love and to walk in love is part
of our destiny in Ephesians 1:4–5. God predestined us to be his
children and that means he destined us to be like him—to be holy,
to be blameless, that is, to live in love to each other and to all
men.

John put it like this in 1 John 3:10, "By this the children of
God . . . are manifest . . . the one who does not love his brother
is not [a child] of God."

Your destiny is to be holy as your Father is holy, and that
means that your very essence is to love, for God, your Father, is
love (1 John 4:8). You are predestined to be like your Father.

Our Highest Destiny

But that's not your highest destiny. Your highest destiny is
described in verse 6. Why has God predestined us to sonship and
holiness and blamelessness and love? Verse 6: "To the praise of the
glory of his grace." Our holiness and our blamelessness and our
love and our sonship are not ends in themselves. They exist for
something greater: the praise of the glory of God's grace.

The ultimate goal of God in election and predestination is that
God might be praised for his glory. And the highest point of that
glory is grace. This is the final goal of our destiny. There is no
higher hope, no greater tomorrow, no more meaningful future, no
more worthy cause to live for, than to reflect and praise the glory
of God's grace forever and ever.

The certainty of that destiny is grounded in the freedom of God
and the all-sufficient work of his Son Jesus.

2. The Ground of Our Destiny

So consider finally and briefly the ground of your destiny.
We've seen the goal. Now we look at the ground or foundation.

"Through Jesus Christ"

In verse 5 Paul says, "God predestined us to sonship through
Jesus Christ." Now to see what that means, look at Ephesians
5:25–27.

25) Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26)
that he might sanctify her [that is, "make her holy"] . . .
27) that he might present the church to himself in glory, not
having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be
holy and blameless.

The same two words from Ephesians 1:4! In other words, the basis
of your becoming holy and blameless
before God is the loving
self-sacrifice of Christ on your behalf. The ground of our destiny
to be holy and blameless in love as God's children is the death of
Jesus in our place.

This means that when God chose you before the foundation of the
world, and predestined you to be his holy, blameless, loving child,
he also predestined his Son to die for you. The ground of your
destiny is not only that the Son of God died for you, but that God
planned it that way from the beginning. "He predestined us to
sonship through Jesus Christ." The end was predestined and the
means were predestined. Our holiness and Jesus' death.

The Sovereign, Free Will of God

But the ultimate ground, the deepest foundation, of our becoming
blameless and holy in love is not the death of God's Son. Verse 5 points to a deeper ground, namely, the sovereign, free will of
God.

Verse 5 says, "God predestined us to sonship through Jesus
Christ for himself according to the good pleasure of his will." The
point of this text is to teach every believer this morning that we
owe our adoption into God's family to the "good pleasure of God's
will." We were chosen before the foundation of the world; we were
predestined to sonship and holiness and love not according to what
we had done, or according to what we understood, or according to
who our parents were, or according to our race, or according to
religious background, or according to where we lived, or according
to our work or our status or wealth, or according to what we
willed. We were chosen and predestined according to the good
pleasure of God's will.

And the point of the double phrase (not just "according to his
will" but) "the good pleasure of his will" is meant to communicate
to us that God chose us and predestined us without any binding
reference point but his own sovereign will.

Conclusion

The sum of the matter is this: the ground of our predestination
is the good pleasure of God's will, the goal of our predestination
is the praise of God's glory, and the predestined connecting links
between the good pleasure of his will and the praise of his glory
are the death of his Son and the holiness of his people.

If you are trusting in Jesus Christ this morning, the roots of
your life were planted in the eternal counsels of God, and the
branches of your life are growing into an absolutely sure and
glorious future with God. There are no unimportant days in your
life. You don't ever have to go to bed at night feeling that your
life is going nowhere. You don't ever have to give in to the lie
that you are not connected to an awesome purpose.

For God chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world
that you might be holy and blameless before him in love; he
predestined you to sonship through Jesus Christ for himself
according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the
glory of his grace. Amen.

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books.

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